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Geek Culture / XP Boot up problems

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Killswitch
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Joined: 2nd Oct 2002
Location: School damnit!! Let me go!! PLEASE!!!
Posted: 19th Jul 2004 23:15
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My friend rang me the other day saying that his computer (XP) wouldn't boot up, apperently it just restarts before it can even get to the login screen.

I suggested using system restore - but theres no way of getting to it. He has managed to get into DOS using a restore disk or something like that but I couldn't be sure.

I've been crawling google for some help and I've got some relevent info about the restarting problem:

1. XP auto reboots when it encoutners a problem - you can switch it off but you need to get to the desktop.

2. Some drivers cause a confliction, causing it to reboot ~ this could be it as he has just got Wanadoo broadband.

Can anyone shed some light on this problem? There's alot about Win XP rebooting while the computer is running progs ect but nothing about a restart during boot up.

He may also have gotten a worm, as he did have broadband for like 2 days before this problem occured he's on SP1 at the moment.

Thanks alot.

~It's a common mistake to make, the rules of the English langauge do not apply to insanity~
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OSX Using Happy Dude
21
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Joined: 21st Aug 2003
Location: At home
Posted: 19th Jul 2004 23:23
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If its not displaying a blue screen before resetting, then it sounds like some file is missing corrupt. Possible even the boot sector is damaged

Can you get to Safe Mode or even use the Last Good Profile ?


Are you sensitive enough?
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Killswitch
21
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Joined: 2nd Oct 2002
Location: School damnit!! Let me go!! PLEASE!!!
Posted: 19th Jul 2004 23:30
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Nope he's tried safe mode didn't work. To be honest I'm not exactly sure whats going on as I haven't sat in front of the computer myself.

I saw on one website how to make a boot disk, you have to copy Boot.ini right? Well I was trying to explain to him how to do this in DOS but it came up with 'Bad command' doesn't this mean that he either typed in the command wrong (which I doubt I told him it character by charcter - though he still may have messed it up typing) or the file dosen't exist....


Hmm...is Boot.ini standard?

~It's a common mistake to make, the rules of the English langauge do not apply to insanity~
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spooky
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Joined: 30th Aug 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 19th Jul 2004 23:43
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If computer does not get as far as windows, you can still do a system restore back to a time when you had no problems. Follow instructions on Microsoft article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=304449

Basically involves hitting F8 to get to a dos prompt and then running dos version of system restore.

I had to do this once and it does actually work, so long as your friend actually has the system restore option turned on inside windows. It's on as default but some people turn it off to save disk space and it is sometimes necessary to temporarily turn it off to delete viruses.


Boo!
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Ice Dragonz
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Joined: 19th Jul 2004
Location: Not from this planet x_x
Posted: 20th Jul 2004 03:33
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My friend had a worm. He turned on his computer and a message came up saying something like this:

"We are now shuting down you computer."

And it said it was from NT. When this was happening, there was blue squares going down the screen. He did (i guess the DOS way) system restore and now the only thing wrong with his computer is that hes getting hacked. He thinks the guy who sent him the worm is now trying to hack him.

So yah, my advice would be to do DOS sys restore. Good luck.

____________
-IceDragonz-
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Killswitch
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Posted: 20th Jul 2004 18:34
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That would be Sasser.

Thanks for the article but he rang me last night while I was in the shower he's just had it all wiped! Poor bugger he's lost all his coursework!

~It's a common mistake to make, the rules of the English langauge do not apply to insanity~
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OSX Using Happy Dude
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Posted: 20th Jul 2004 18:56
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Sounds like he didn't have a backup then...


Are you sensitive enough?
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Teh Go0rfmeister
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Posted: 22nd Jul 2004 19:23
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i only had that problem when i tried overclocking too far.

might be a fault in his CPU cooler, tell him to drop his FSB and multiplier to its lowest setting.

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M00NSHiNE
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Location: England, UK
Posted: 22nd Jul 2004 23:17
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Sounds like the Sasser Worm but that gave a message that everything was shutting down and said that lsass.exe has terminated abnormally.

Sounds very much like a hack, a hacker can easily get into a Windows machine and force it into a constant reboot.

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Killswitch
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Location: School damnit!! Let me go!! PLEASE!!!
Posted: 22nd Jul 2004 23:20
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It's deffinatly not Sasser I fixed that for him a few weeks ago - it could be a hack but I guess we'll never know the cause now.

~It's a common mistake to make, the rules of the English langauge do not apply to insanity~
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Teh Go0rfmeister
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Posted: 23rd Jul 2004 06:06 Edited at: 23rd Jul 2004 06:07
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... before formatting, remember to take the hdd out and put it in another pc as slave to back it up.

a good way to check if it is the hdd is to put a different one in with an OS installed, if it does the same then you know its something more serius and may end up with him having to get either a new obo, cpu or both.

edit: try getting a virus scanner which allows you to scan the pc before startup too.

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